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Blood is the Greek queen's only demand, and blood is the only token she will accept as answer. Like a starved lioness she pursues any prey that dares the reach of her pitted iron xiphos, parting flesh and bone in long strokes that paint her arms with gore. She is rampant, revered. The shapes of men billow up before her and then fold away, their bowels twisting after them like strips of cloth. Even the sun and the sea rush close, eager to deliver her chosen tribute; dusk descends to meet her on heavy red wings and the waves foam beneath the cutting prows of those few ships left intact, reaching upward with grey hands full of corpses.Awed, Artemisia watches her stalk the slick, black decks of their two fleets joined in slaughter. A hunter queen, Gorgo of Sparta, borne from the rocky shore of Salamis by cold winds. The clash of her metal bangles and armour and blade announce her presence, a fell ringing of chimes that swoops louder and louder as dying sighs drift away. She gains the shattered rail of Artemisia's flagship with an impossible leap and turns the force of her landing into a headlong charge toward the helm. No battle cry, no warning, only soft rattle like a sphinx's flight as it moves through the gaps between nightmares.Save fear, Artemisia thinks, for the fearful. She raises her swords in a fierce salute against the collision, barely managing to deflect Gorgo's blade. They push back at each other, whirl apart, and Artemisia shrieks with laughter, wreathed in the black storm of her bloodsoaked hair. She sways low, watches Gorgo strike her heels up against a solid obstacle. A crucial moment. But Artemisia lets it slip past, withdrawing her advantage blithely. She has already decided to let the lioness recover her wits, the better to see the shambles of her pride.There is the barest pause as Gorgo narrows her eyes, settles her footing quickly -- and finally registers the heaps of bodies surrounding her. All tangled in Athenian blue, all bruised with wide stains of Athenian blood. The heaving of her chest slows and she meets Artemisia's gaze. Blood answers blood. Turnabout is, after all, the curse that poisons every act of vengeance.The bell and cry of battle reaches them over the waves, faintly. Far louder is the hiss of wind through the ropes and sails, the strange whine of the ship as it rocks ponderously and stretches wide its wounds. At last, Gorgo lowers her sword and steps sideways over a stray limb, suddenly sedate."They died in battle," she says, "and so they have gone to their glory.""They died," Artemisia agrees.A long line of firelight from some faraway explosion flares abruptly, catching in Gorgo's eyes. They turn briefly and truly leonine. "And you, then? Where do you plan to go when this is done?""Into Greece, of course, if I have victory."Smiling strangely, Gorgo moves in a slow circle to her left."And if not," Artemisia adds, watchful, "I suppose I will go into the sea."The swing comes horizontally, level with her left elbow. Too awkward to block, though she nearly tries on a reflex. Instead Artemisia simply turns aside, coming around to face the next assault with both blades lifting defensively -- and she finds that Gorgo has anticipated her, has pressed close and chopped down without waiting to target anything in particular. The Spartan xiphos takes Artemisia's sword cleanly out of her right hand. She only marvels that none of the hand was taken with it. Still armed, she hacks at Gorgo's exposed side but the queen is perhaps more demon than lioness; she goes to one knee, dropping beneath the blow that would slice her head from her shoulders, then rises and slams into Artemisia, pinning her sword arm against her body. They come down hard on the deck and then the second blade is skittering away, jarred loose from her numb fingers.Something hot and palpable stings Artemisia where even where pain should not reach. Gorgo's teeth are on her throat, on her hair, she hisses: "You were born to Greeks," and to Artemisia's ear the words are venomous and mournful. She exhales laughter. The sharp golden ornamentation on her armour presses into her spine like a line of daggers so she shifts until Gorgo lets her roll to one side, though a rough hand closes on her neck and the full weight of a muscled body settles onto her legs."I was a thrall to Greeks, too," she gasps, placing her fingers over that immovable hand. "Discarded by Greeks. Forgotten by Greeks. Remade by the ones who found me abandoned." Finding a scar among all the tendons and bones, she strokes it, regaining her breath. "Imagine if it had been you. If I had ended up in your fields somehow, shorn like one of your little soldiers, asking to be trained. What would I have been to you? What would you have made from me?""A servant to a queen and no more," Gorgo replies, neither kind nor unkind. "Nothing that would have brought peace to a thing like you."Artemisia tastes blood on her teeth. She smiles. "What's peace? What is servitude, when the servant learns to draw power only from her own strength? You are queen because your people say you are queen. They make your power. You are a queen of stony islands but we are not on your islands now." She slides her legs together. Leather creaks and slithers along the inside of Gorgo's thighs. Lifting her chin, Artemisia whispers: "We are at sea. Whether or not I die here, I am Admiral over a fleet of my own making."Gorgo dips her head sharply, teeth bared as if in warning. But then, she murmurs, "True enough," and it must be the brush of her mouth that burns so hot, not even blood or breath has the same fire. "You may die here."Artemisia laughs, though the sound is strangled short. They each still have one hand at her throat. Working the other free from her body, Artemisia reaches for the queen's sword, slips her fingertips over the ragged grain, draws it closer -- carefully. Until at last she can grip Gorgo's wrist, guide her hand down with the blade turning slowly, slowly away until finally the hilt eases between her legs. Deliberately, she closes her thighs tightly on it. Tilting her head, Gorgo slides her knees wider by the slightest margin, pushes the hilt firmly up between Artemisia's hips. She seems to consider the difficulty of slicing through leather with a more delicate intent. She moves her knuckles against warmth and the intimation of wetness, and she sighs."So," Artemisia sighs back, and turns her head toward a dark shape looming above the sagging rail, "into the sea."The Greek trireme smashes her ship with enough force to shear it nearly in half, throwing Gorgo aside. The deck and all the world seems to rise up in a fury, throwing debris skyward where ashen clouds shot with red and gold swallow all traces of war. Artemisia plummets toward them, strikes through the skin that holds back stars and sun. It shocks and enrages her, the cold grip of the clouds and the darkness in the heavens above them. This is not flight, she decides, tearing mindlessly at the armour and adornments tied to her body, rising then as if drawn up from a well. The great shadows of ships, listing yet still seaworthy, are all around her. Pushing aside cold corpses pledged to the Spartan queen's vengeance, she sees the sky again in truth. It rears above her and lies reflected on the waves, a murky mirror threaded with red foam.She will be counted among those dead, she knows, though her heart still thunders and her blood still boils with the memory of commanding hands hoping to collar her like a hound. A thing of vengeance, bound to that queen. For now, she tells herself, the count is true enough.