Ameera was out in the fields, supervising the work on her vineyard. As she strode between the rows of ripening grapes, she was accompanied by several servants: a scribe to record any orders her mistress might give, a young girl with a flask of chilled, sweet wine, part of the vineyard’s own stock, another carrying a colorful silk awning, to shade her mistress from the hot summer sun. Ameera had the pale complexion that marked a high born amazon noblewoman. Her tall, shapely body was draped in a brightly colored silk tunic, belted at the waist that came down to her knees. Her long legs were bare, save for golden sandals. The aristocratic lady’s light blonde hair was piled on her head, held in place with a jeweled pin of gold. Her attendants were clad in similar tunics, though of bleached white cotton and their sandals were plain leather.

The young noblewoman paused to talk with one of her overseers about the prospects of the coming harvest. The gruff amazon carried a short leather whip in one hand, to keep order among the slaves toiling in the field of vines. The slaves were stripped naked, save the iron collars and tags around their necks that marked them as Ameera’s property. They were a mix of enslaved amazons and foreign girls, abducted by the Amazon Queen’s warrior women on raids to distant lands and sold in the capital’s slave market.

Just then, Ameera heard a distant rumble, coming from far off, disturbing the quiet of the mid-afternoon. A group of riders were coming down the road, towards the vineyard. She looked, curious, in the direction the sounds were coming from. Her villa was only a few miles from the capital, but it lay well off the Queen’s Highway, which most travelers coming or going from the city usually took. Visitors were not a common occurrence out here. After a while, her eyes spotted a cloud of dust, in the distance. The riders, whoever they were, must be travelling at speed, to throw up so much dust.

A few minutes later, they crested a hill and came into view. Ameera studied the riders as they closed the distance. There were six women, mounted on magnificent chargers. Five of the riders wore red tunics, underneath steel breast plates, etched with silver filigree, depicting a crowned swan, the symbol of the royal household, and a red cloak, billowing in the wind behind them as they galloped, royal palace guard. Each woman had on a crested steel helm, similarly decorated, that covered her face down to the nose, in the front, a fringe of chainmail hung in the back to protect the neck. Their legs were armored with steel greaves.

The lead rider had a sword belted at her left side, a dagger on her right. The two women behind her had similar swords, and carried round shields, painted with the royal sigil. Another woman had a shorter bladed sword on her belt, but hung across her back was a quiver of arrows and a short, recurved bow. The final guardswoman had no sword or shield. Instead, a massive, double-headed axe was strapped across her back. A pair of smaller, throwing axes were hung from her belt.

The sixth horsewoman, riding in the back, was different. She wore a purple robe, stitched with arcane symbols in silver thread. The robe’s hood was thrown back, against the heat of the day, revealing a surprisingly young face, pale and rather pretty. Her hair was snow white and cut short. As they got closer, Ameera could see a pair of gold-framed spectacle were balanced on her short, pert nose. One of the mages from the Royal College of Magic.

Seeing Ameera’s group, the warrior at the lead raised a hand, signaling her companions. The riders reined their horses in, bringing them to a halt, twenty yards away from Ameera and her retinue. While one of them held her horse, the leader dismounted and strode over to Ameera and the overseer. Ameera was struck by the woman’s presence. The guardswoman was tall, even for an Amazon, with long arms and legs and, if her breast plate was anything to go by, a large bust. The woman raised her hands and lifted her helm up off her head. Shoulder length, black hair cascaded down, freed from the steel helmet’s confines. A pair of sharp grey eyes looked down over an aquiline nose at the group of women as she walked over to them.

“My pardons, my lady.” The guardswoman said in a stern voice. “I am Maritha, of the House Lothian, of the Queen’s Palace Guard. My companions and I are pursuing a fugitive, a young woman on horseback. We believe she came down this road, not far ahead of us. Has anyone passed by recently?”

The overseeing glanced at Ameera. The noblewoman nodded. The commoner turned to the guard, Maritha. “I did see a rider, this morning, about an hour past day break. She was riding fast, but I paid her no heed. What has she done?”

Maritha shrugged. “Just a common thief, stole some things from the palace and fled. I thank you for this. Good day.” She turned and quickly returned to her horse. Putting her helmet back on, she waved to her comrades. “We’re not far behind her. Onwards!” She spurred her mount forward; her companions close behind, galloping down the road.

Ameera watched as first the riders, then the cloud of dust following them, and finally the sound of their hoof beats, disappeared into the distance. She wondered what had happened at the palace. Meanwhile, the overseer turned back to the slaves, who had stopped working to watch the exchange of words. “Back to work, you lazy slaves!” She growled, raising her whip threateningly…

***

Maritha rejoiced in the thrill of the hunt; the warm sun on her, the wind blowing, the feel of her mount, galloping underneath her. Around the amazon, the rest of her squad, and the mage, were riding down the packed earth road with her. Their quarry was sticking to the back roads, avoiding the paved roads of the Queen’s Highway, for obvious reasons; by now, the guardswomen all along the Highway would have been alerted and on the look-out for her. She could hear the others talking, muffled slightly by the helmets the guardswomen were wearing.

“What do you bet the Queen will do with the bitch when we bring her back?” Amilla, Maritha’s second in command, the daughter of two of the Queen’s officers, born and raised in the barracks, asked.  

“I think she’ll stretch our thief’s neck, hang her from the palace gatehouse.” Tvirin, the fiery redheaded shield maiden from the far north, with her big battle axe said with a laugh. “Or maybe send her to the block, let her pretty head decorate the walls for a time.”

“Execution is reserved for murderers and traitors.” Aisha, the golden skinned archer from the coast replied. Raven haired, she was calm and reserved, the opposite of Tvirin, which made their close friendship hard to understand.  

“I think the Queen might make an exception in this case…” Tvirin shot back.

“If you ask me, it’s the slave collar for our thief…” The final squad woman, Hestia said, riding up beside the three. “Maybe she’ll be sent down into the mines, or chained to an oar on one of the Queen’s galleys. Or maybe she’ll be put in golden shackles and kept in the Queen’s harem with the rest of her concubines …” The four laughed, suggesting various punishments for their quarry, each more outrageous then the last. Maritha listened with half an ear, thinking to herself.

The day before, an intruder had snuck into the palace, not difficult in itself. During the day, the palace was filled with hundreds of people; petitioners seeking an audience with the Queen’s justices and officials, foreign dignitaries, offering gifts to the queen, ordinary women, come to marvel at the palace and the handful of galleries of the Queen’s treasury open for public viewing, not to mention the dozens of palace guards, servants, scribes and slaves keeping things running orderly. Before the evening bell, when the palace closed to outside visitors, the intruder ambushed two serving girls in a remote wing of the palace. The unlucky maids were stripped naked, bound, gagged and blindfolded with shreds of cloth torn from one girl’s tunic, and left in a small storage room, while their attacker slipped away, dressed in the other girl’s clothes.

No one paid the false servant any mind during the night. In the early hours of the morning, she lured one of the guardswomen away from her post and overpowered the tired warrior. Knocked out, stripped of her armor, weapons and uniform, trussed into a tight package, blindfolded and gagged with the second servant’s torn up clothes, the captive guard was left locked up in a large chest in the guards’ barracks, while her attacker put on her uniform. Even with the stolen uniform, she should have been stopped and discovered by the guards before she made it into the Queen’s private chambers. It was only due to the guards’ carelessness that she got in. Maritha suspected more than a few unlucky guardswomen, not to mention the commander of the Palace Guard, would be spending the near future in the dungeons, as punishment for letting the thief get into the treasury and steal…

Just then, the Amazons came to a crossroads. Maritha raised her hand again, calling the squad to a halt in a flurry of hoof beats, whinnying and tossed up dust. As the cloud of dirt settled over the women, Maritha studied an old wooden sign, leaning to one side. The names painted on the wooden boards nailed to it had worn away over the years, making them difficult to read. She nodded to the mage. “Livia!”

“Commander.” Livia replied, walking her horse past the other guardswomen to the commander.

“See if you can detect which way the thief went.” Maritha ordered. She’d been hesitant when she was told to take one of the court wizards with her to pursue the thief. Like any good soldier, Maritha distrusted fickle magic, preferring a good steel sword to a want any day, but maybe the mage could be useful.

Livia nodded, reaching into one of the many small pouches hung from her belt. From within, she drew out a large, white crystal. The daylight shimmered through the crystal, scattering a bewildering pattern of colors on the other side. The mage slowly swept the crystal across the crossroads, pausing at each pathway, studying how the light changed. It meant nothing to Maritha, but evidently the wizard was able to determine something from the patterns, because a moment later, she nodded, satisfied. The young woman put the crystal back into the pouch and turned to Maritha. “That way, commander.” She pointed to one road, heading up into the northern highlands. “Unless I have misread the signs, she must be heading for the Yuntai forest, hoping to lose us in there.”

Maritha nodded. Along with the rest of the Queen’s Guard, she’d been called on to flush bandits out of those goddess-forsaken woods, whenever their depredations grew too great. It was very easy, especially for one person to remain hidden in the depths of those woods.

“Let’s hurry then. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch up with her before she makes it to the woods. Otherwise we’ll need more women to help search.” Maritha spurred her mount forward, down the road Livia had indicated, quickly reaching a gallop. Behind her, the other amazons rose after her. The thief was riding a stolen cart horse. After escaping the palace, she’d held up a farm girl along the road, taken her peasant’s garb in place of her more inconspicuous guard’s uniform, stolen her horse and left the unlucky lass hogtied in the back of her cart to be found by her pursuers. With luck, her horse would soon tire at this pace, while Maritha and her companions’ mounts, prized steeds from the Queen’s Royal Stables, were still fresh.

When they were found, all of the thief’s victims had given the same description: a tall, slender woman, with pale skin and a young face; narrow, with a short, pointed nose beneath large grey-blue eyes. She’d had no weapons or equipment, other than a sack filled with strong, soft rope and what she’d taken from her captives. All of them had also sworn she had the long, pointed ears of an elf-maiden! The elves were not often seen in the Amazon Queen’s lands. The elves rarely ventured out of their wooded realm, which lay far to the west, as far as Maritha knew. Still, a few individuals possessed the urge to explore the wider world. They were said to possess great grace and poise, as well as a natural talent for magic. If that were true, they would need to take great care in capturing this thief.

To her disappointment, the amazons did not catch up to the thief, though as the afternoon wore on, her tracks became fresher, raising Maritha’s hopes they were catching up with her. Then, about three hours after they had passed the crossroads, the guards discovered why their quarry had stayed ahead of them; near the side of the road, there was a stand of trees. A small, dappled brown cart horse was grazing among the undergrowth.

Nearby, a pair of young women were lashed together and to one of the trees with rope. On the inside, with her back to the thick trunk of the tree, was a tall, strapping lass with short, straw blonde hair. Pressed tight to her front, chest to chest, lashed together with coils of rope, was a shorter girl with raven black hair that came half way down her back, braided into a single, long braid. Her head was bowed, resting on the shoulder of her companion.

As Maritha dismounted and hurried over to them, she noticed the two girls were completely naked, beneath the ropes. Strips of white cloth were tied across the girls’ eyes and between their lips, as makeshift gags. Near their bare feet, a pile of torn rags probably was the rest of their clothes. The two girls jerked up, hearing the guardswoman approaching.

“Don’t worry.” Maritha said, calmingly. “I’m one of the Queen’s Guard. I’m going to cut you loose.” As she approached, she noted the two girls blushing. When she went to free them she saw why: the two girls arms had been wrapped around each other, their hands bound, palm to palm, behind the other girl’s back. A double strand of cord had been run from each girl’s wrists between the legs of her friend, to another cord tied around her waist, cinched snug against the captive’s naked sex. As they struggled, they would stimulate each other. Evidently, the two had been using this to “entertain” themselves while waiting to be rescued.

The dark haired girl groaned into her gag with relief, as Maritha quickly cut through the ropes binding her with her dagger. Slowly, the guardswoman freed the two girls from their rope cocoon. “Thank you, mistress.” The teenage girl said, her voice soft, as she pulled away her gag and spat out a wad of sodden rolled up cloth that had been stuffed in her mouth. “We’ve been here almost two hours…” Maritha frowned, realizing that, despite taking time to tie up these two, the thief still had so great a lead on them.

As the girl reached up and pulled away her blindfold, Maritha recognized her: Elipha, the youngest daughter of Lady Tysha. “We were robbed.” The girl continued. “…she forced us to strip naked, tied us up and took our horses.” She turned and helped Maritha untie her friend, untying her gag and blindfold. “This is my…er…handmaiden.” She explained, gazing up at the older girl lovingly. “We were out riding together…”

Maritha helped the two girls walk over to the rest of the amazons. They were weak after being tied up so long. Two of Maritha’s guards gave the girls their cloaks, to cover themselves up. Another handed them a skin of watered down wine. Elipha took a long swig and handed it to her companion. While Livia examined the two to make sure they were all right, the noble girl explained how they’d been captured; the two had come across the elf thief, who had lured them from the road with a story about an injured companion. No sooner had they dismounted though then she drew her stolen sword and took them captive. She took their horses and rode off, leaving them to struggle.

“Thank you for this.” Maritha told the young noble lady. Aisha and Tvirin had managed to catch the wandering cart horse, for the girls to ride back to the city. “Do you require an escort back?” she said a silent prayer of thanks when the Elipha shook her head. The guards would need to ride hard to catch the thief now. The elf had a good lead on them and with mounts now, she could ride one and let the other rest without stopping. It was unlikely they’d catch her short of the forest. As the two lovers rode south down the road, Maritha mounted her horse and led her guardswomen the other way north…