by Nancy Holder
Summoning his courage, he leaned out again, much farther this time, and again the fog vanished and the island reappeared, bathed in warm sunlight. Farther to his right, about a quarter mile between the boat and the island, he saw something in the water. Two heads moving together. Someone swimming. Someone was towing the pilot to the beach.
Stunned, he drew back to the bow. And as he did, once again the cold, wet fog enveloped him. He turned to the stern and waved at the tillerman, pointing off into the impenetrable wall of mist.
“The pilot! He’s there!”
The tillerman gave him a dubious look, but slowly turned the boat in the direction he indicated. The rumble of the battle cruiser grew louder as it crept up behind them.
* * *
Aboard the battle cruiser, the captain raised his field glasses. He blinked at an island that shouldn’t have been there, an island not noted on any chart. On the beach dead ahead of them, one person was dragging another out of the water. The person being dragged was dressed in a flight suit. It had to be their quarry. The rescuer was a young woman in a scanty costume. It was all so strange—
—But orders were orders, and they had to capture that man.
Without lowering his binoculars he hand-signaled the lieutenant to make speed. They would make a full assault on that beachhead—
—He blinked—
—The beachhead that kept disappearing.
5
Diana swam for shore with the limp body in tow. She couldn’t tell if the person she had rescued was alive or dead. She timed their crossing of the outside of the reef with an incoming wave that lifted them up and over. Inside the barrier of rock and coral, the water was calmer and she quickly reached the shallows.
Then she dragged the body by the arms onto the sand. She realized she was not only pulling a body in a heavy one-piece suit, but a bag on a strap over the shoulder. When she let go of the arms, she stared down at the face. Stared hard at sharp angles, a strong jawline, stubble on the cheeks and chin. Her breath caught. This was a man. Here, on the protected beach of her hidden homeland.
Wonder; warmth, an echo of power as she gazed down on him—the first man she had ever seen in person. He looked like the best of the warriors she had studied in her mother’s triptych. A personification of man’s goodness.
But was he dead? His eyes were closed, his lips slack. She was moved, hoping she’d gotten to him in time. Tentatively she reached out to touch his cheek.
The man jerked awake, squinting into the sun. As she withdrew her hand, he blinked and looked up at her. They locked gazes, and he blinked as if startled. Then he simply stared at her.
“Wow,” he said. His eyes were blue. So blue.
She laughed with the pleasure of …what, discovery? Something more than that. “You are a… man.”
“Yes, I mean…” He paused, and when he continued his voice was suddenly even deeper. “Yeah. Do I not look like a… Where am I?”
“You are on Themyscira. Who are you?”
“I’m one of the good guys,” the man said. He gestured. “And those are the bad guys.”
Four small boats brimming with men were speeding for the beach.
“You know,” the man continued, “Germans.”
“Germans?”
“We gotta get out of here.” He stripped off the sodden outer suit, revealing a gray uniform.
“Diana!”
Her mother and her guard lined the bluff overlooking the beach. Bows were drawn and arrows aimed at the rescued man beside her. Diana had no doubt that they could miss her and hit him.
“Step away from her! Now!” Hippolyta commanded. To her troops, “Ready your bows!”
The man’s eyes widened. “They have guns, right?”
Diana just stared at him. She didn’t understand what he was talking about. Behind them, the small boats were in the shallows preparing to land on the beach.
“Fire!” Hippolyta commanded.
Another wave of mounted guards swept up behind the Queen. They whipped out their bows, and as they notched their arrows, an Amazon on foot ran down the line, lighting the arrowheads with a torch. They flexed their bows, aiming higher, to rain arrows down on the invading craft.
Flaming arrows whooshed from the cliff top, sailed high over Diana’s head, and pin-cushioned the four small boats. Most found targets. Men in gray uniforms staggered and fell. The barking clatter from their weapons shocked Diana. Tiny objects zipped past her and the man she had saved like angry bees, throwing up puffs of dry sand and sparking chips out of the rock formation beyond them.
“Get down!” the man cried as he grabbed hold of Diana and swung her down behind the nearest available cover, a boulder outcrop. This put them both out of the line of fire as the men in gray uniforms splashed out of the surf, fanning out onto the beach.
More Amazons joined the ranks of those stationed along the edge of the cliff, thundering to join their sisters. They were led by the athletic daredevil Orana. As Diana watched, a wave of warriors filled grappling arrows with lines attached across the curved beach and into the rocks and sand. They flung themselves down, firing arrow after arrow at the invaders the man had labeled Germans with deadly accuracy. Orana threw herself—literally—into the fray.
Movement out of the corner of her eye made Diana whirl to her right. A German soldier had flanked them; his weapon was up and aimed. The next second, he fired. There was a crack; a flash and puff of smoke burst from the end of the weapon. Plowing through both, a projectile left the barrel, heading straight for Diana’s head. Instantly, the unnerving sensation of time slowing down reasserted itself. The track of the little object as it crawled through the air towards her was mesmerizing.
The man she had saved tackled her from the side, driving her to the sand, and the projectile missed her.
She looked over her shoulder and saw the object sailing in a perfect straight line towards Orana, who dangled on the grappling line, pulling another arrow from the quiver on her back, eyes searching out her next shot. Diana screamed a warning, but Orana didn’t hear her. She was so focused on the battle; she didn’t know what was coming—
The projectile slammed into Orana’s chest, smashing her hard against the cliff wall. She shuddered from the shockwave, head to foot, then collapsed. The bow and arrow dropped from her hands and she hung there, head and arms drooping, swinging against the cliff face.
“No!” Diana screamed. Orana did not rouse. She dangled from the line, slack. Orana was immortal. She could not die.
But we can be killed. But she couldn’t believe it. She could not believe it.
“Keep your head down!” the man warned her.
And then Diana was back in the battle and the need to defend her people. Taking up prone and kneeling positions in the sand, the Germans rained gunfire on the cliff. The noise was deafening. Though shields were up, the projectiles still somehow found their mark, and cut through the defenders like a scythe. Amazons were struck and they crumpled from their saddles, falling off the cliff and toppling to the beach below. This was not the kind of battle Diana had trained for. What manner of combat was this? Impersonal. Inhuman. Indiscriminate.
The German who had killed Orana turned his weapon towards the cliff. Before he could shoot again an arrow hit his gun, filling the barrel with point and shaft, rendering it useless. But he was either already in the act of firing, or the shock of the arrow strike made him flinch; the gun went off anyway. Something had to give, and it did—spectacularly. With an ear-splitting crack the end of the weapon blew apart, sending pieces of hot metal flying in all directions, but mostly back at the shooter. The soldier’s helmet blew off and he fell to his back, clutching his face.
At that moment a stampede of Amazons on horseback charged through the massive stone archway that led to the beach. My sister warriors! Majestic and frenzied, they filled the gap, wall to wall, and, led by Antiope, burst through the roiling clouds of dust they had raised. With her younger sister, Menalippe, and Artemi
s at her side, the general deflected a flurry of bullets with her shield and rode down the nearest Germans before they could reload. With slashes of her sword she hacked through their ranks, leaving a trail of bodies. Amazons soared into the air, firing, twisting and turning and planting their landings back into the sand. They flung themselves sideways off their saddles, raining arrows and javelins on the invaders.
The blue-eyed man nudged Diana and pointed at a soldier moving quick and low. The man was sneaking into position behind a nearby rock. “Stay there!” he ordered her.
She caught a glint of a knife in the blue-eyed man’s hand. It had a long, narrow double-edged blade with a cross guard. A dirk designed for one thing and one thing only—killing other humans. He jumped over the top of the rock and leapt on the German, driving him down out of sight. A second later he reappeared holding the man’s rifle. He turned toward the sea and began firing at the steady flow of Germans advancing from the water line.
Beyond, the enormous ship that had brought the Germans had hit the coral reefs. Black, gritty smoke from the sinking battleship swept across the reef and over the beach. It smelled like it had come from the burning pits of hell.
No longer able to contain herself, Diana grabbed up a bow and arrow, drew back the bowstring, and shot one of the Germans. She let more arrows fly. Then she hefted the sword of a fallen Amazon and rushed into the battle. She remembered what Antiope had said about not holding back and not trusting her adversaries to be honorable. And for the first time, Diana understood exactly what she meant.
When a German attacked in a mad bull rush, she deflected his bayonet with her shield, pivoted to let him rush past, and used her sword in a precise backhand stroke. The soldier squealed and crashed face first in the sand. He shouted at her in his native tongue and the others came at her two and three at a time. But the attacks were uncoordinated and the soft sand hampered their speed. They were so naturally lead-footed that she easily beat them back, and when one faltered in retreat, feet tangling, she used the pommel of the sword and a deft, powerful punch to the chin to drop him to the ground.
Frustration made the survivors more reckless. When one of them tried to shoulder and fire his gun at her, its length was a handicap. She moved in a blur, closing the gap before he could fire. The German screeched as he dropped the gun. Diana booted him in the chest and his head snapped back and he crumpled to the sand.
As Diana found her rhythm in the battle, Antiope’s voice cut through the din. “Charge!”
They worked together, collaborating, a true tribe, taking every advantage they could as they learned the battle techniques of their adversaries. The Germans’ weapons had to be reloaded with a bolt-like apparatus after each shot, which left them vulnerable to the fast-moving warriors. With no time to reload, the men used their bayonets against swords and spears.
The company of Amazons pressed forward, driving the invaders back towards the sea. The Germans waiting in the boats couldn’t fire without hitting their own. The soldiers quickly discovered that a short blade on the end of a gun, no matter how sharp, was no match for thirty inches of tempered steel. Antiope and her cohort made good progress at first; unmoving Germans littered the beach in their wake. But the advance slowed as the remaining men in the boats hurried to join the fight. Some had very short guns that could be fired with one hand. Those weapons worked devastatingly well at close quarters. So well that Antiope stalled short of victory.
Then Hippolyta and her guard swept down onto the beach. The Queen slashed her way through the Germans, using knee pressure to guide her horse so she had both hands free to fight. Supremely confident, she pulled away from her cohort as she hurried to reinforce Antiope.
On foot, Antiope yanked the arrows from her quiver and planted them in the sand. She crouched beside them and strung her bow, arrow after arrow thinning the Germans’ ranks. Hippolyta dismounted and joined her sister in battle. They fought close together, first defensively, but as the number of opponents dropped—literally falling to the sand—they began to advance in triumph.
“Shield!” Antiope shouted to Menalippe.
Diana had watched this maneuver many times on the practice field, but never in the heat of combat. Menalippe took her shield in both hands and held it parallel to the ground. The general ran at her, jumped onto the shield, and used it like a springboard to vault high in the air. Airborne, Antiope released three arrows, hitting three soldiers simultaneously, a fierce and graceful act.
One of the remaining soldiers turned and raised his gun to fire at her, but the man Diana had rescued fired first. The well-aimed shot struck just below the edge of the German’s helmet, in front of his ear. The helmet was chin-strapped on so it didn’t fly off, but the invader’s head snapped to the side and his knees buckled, gun slipping from his hands.
The stranger had saved Antiope’s life, Diana realized. She was only unfocused for a second, but it was long enough for another soldier to take aim at Diana.
“Diana!” the blue-eyed man shouted, swinging his sights onto the new target.
Before he could shoot, the German fired. Antiope was already in motion. Deliberately, she darted forward and took the bullet that had been intended for her niece.
“No!” Diana screamed. Not her aunt. Not her trainer, her confidante, her sister in arms. No.
The general’s powerful body doubled over and twisted, then toppled to its side on the sand. As the German tried frantically to reload, ejecting a brass shell casing from the weapon, the man she had rescued fired. The soldier was bowled onto his back by the bullet’s impact and his arms and legs went slack.
“Antiope!” Diana cried as she raced to her side. The reverberating noise of battle, the strewn bodies, all of it disappeared. There was only her fallen teacher and friend. Her aunt.
“No! Please no!” She reached out to cradle the general’s head.
Antiope struggled to speak. Blood leaked from beneath her armor, pooling on the dry sand. There was blood on her pale lips. Her eyes were glazing over. “Diana… the time has come… you… you must…”
“What?” Diana fought back tears. So much blood. And agony. She could see it in Antiope’s eyes. Amazons fought against showing weakness and pain. “What? Antiope!”
The general whispered, “Godkiller… Diana, go… Godkiller.”
Diana leaned over her, face pressed close, willing her aunt to prevail in her fight for life. “Go where? Antiope!” And then there was nothing in Antiope’s eyes “No!”
The Queen rushed to Diana’s side, falling to her knees beside the lifeless body. “Sister!” she cried in desperation.
But Antiope was beyond hearing. Diana sank back, incredulous, numb. The reality of her loss was almost too much to bear.
Hippolyta jumped to her feet, sword in hand, and turned on the rescued man in the gray uniform. “You!” she snarled, cocking back the blade as she charged, clearly intending to slice him in half.
Diana bolted from the sand and put herself between them. “Mother, no! He fought at my side against his own people.”
“The man fights against his own people.” Menalippe’s voice dripped with contempt.
“They weren’t my people,” the man said. He had made no attempt to defend himself against the Queen; now he let the gun he held fall to the sand.
“Then why do you wear their colors?” Menalippe said.
“Tell us,” Artemis demanded.
The man looked down at his uniform. “I can’t tell you that.”
Menalippe asked, “What is your name?”
“I can’t tell you that, either.”
“We should kill him right now and be done with it,” Venelia said.
Phillipus interrupted the Queen’s guard, her voice controlled despite the loss of her friend. “He dies and we know nothing about who they are and why they came.”
One of the secrets to Phillipus’s prowess on the battlefield was her ability to strategize; in the heated moment of victory dearly bought, the other A
mazons paid heed.
A death sentence averted, or merely delayed?
Time would tell—but only if the man would give up his secrets.
6
The battle was over, and the Amazon survivors convened in the throne room, a cavernous grotto of rock, bathed by day in sunlight and at night by the moon. Twin circles, two proud shields, flanked the spiral of Andromeda. Golden stairs led to the dais where Hippolyta held court, Diana one step below. There were injuries among the warriors, some severe, but no one sat in the chairs. Diana herself had been cut on the arm. Her heart hurt; her head spun. No story of Ares’s wrath had prepared her for this day.
But as she must, Diana’s mother, the Queen, put aside her sorrows and focused on preventing further tragedy. She called for the prisoner, and Diana could see that it took every ounce of her restraint not to kill him then and there. Instead, Hippolyta forced him to kneel on the throne room’s polished floor, her guard detail on high alert, and threw the Lasso of Hestia around him. He was bleeding from injuries he had sustained in the battle, and bound around the chest and upper arms by the loop of golden lasso that Menalippe controlled.
Diana raised her chin and watched as he struggled, his eyes clamped shut, his face in a frozen grimace. He didn’t want to speak, but the glowing rope forced anyone captured within it to speak the truth. They must have the truth. She must.
“My name’s Captain Steve Trevor,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Pilot… American Expeditionary Force. Serial number 814192. That’s all I’m at liberty to s…”
Captain Steve Trevor. Diana silently sounded out the name. “Captain” was a title; the Amazons used it as well. They had already known he was a warrior, but it was clear from the looks passed among the Queen, her government cabinet, and her highest-ranking warriors that they didn’t know what a “pilot” or an “American Expeditionary Force” were. And as for the number, that was another unknown.