by Travis Bughi
“Very well then,” she waved the argument away, “I suppose it isn’t actually important. Keep the name, but you’ll only ever be known as Emily to the amazons. Also, you’ll do well to mind your elders. I’m the oldest in our group, but there are others older than me back home.”
Emily let out a quiet, relieved sigh and then asked, “How far is Themiscyra?”
“Oh, it’s quite a journey,” Chara gave a wicked grin. “A couple of months by the shortest route, and we take the longer one. You’ll find out why as soon as we do. We travel west out from the city, then north until we near the mountains of Khaz Mal. Then we follow that line until we reach the forest, and from there it’s a straight shot south until we reach home. It’s quite the journey, and most amazons don’t go every year in a row like I do. If you do, you end up spending just as much, if not more, time traveling than you do at home. I like to think it’s what keeps me young, though. I’m in much better shape than most women my age, which is something Adelpha tends to forget.”
Chara glanced over shoulder at Adelpha, and the younger amazon switched her glare from Emily to the older woman. Emily had half a mind to ask why Adelpha was with them at all, what their connection was, but another thought bubbled up first.
“Mother,” Emily started, “about this bow. Mother told me that she made it from the trees of Angor.”
“She didn’t say the trees, Daughter.”
“Yes, she . . .” Emily paused to think back. “Well, she said she made it in the forest, and this is wood, isn’t it?”
“Eh,” Chara contorted her lips, “yes, and no.”
Emily sensed that Chara was intentionally leading her on. There was a lingering smirk on the old woman’s face, but Emily was a patient girl. They still had a full day’s walk to Lucifan, and she could do with a bit of guessing.
“So, it’s made of wood, but not from trees.”
“Correct,” Chara nodded.
Emily held up the bow and gazed at it. It was similar to any bow Emily could imagine. She’d only seen a few of them in her life, most of them owned by rich farm owners who kept them for sport or as trophies of their wealth. One had claimed that his bow had been purchased from centaurs that lived in Angor. He’d said the centaurs were ‘unicorn-people,’ and that their bow-making skills were the best in the world. Emily had also seen one of the bows on a wandering human who had passed by their farm looking for water. His bow had looked like a ‘C’, and he’d said he used it for hunting animals and for protection.
The amazon bow Emily held now was slightly different from those. It was darker in color, lighter in weight, and far too smooth for wood. The lines flowed in unison from one tip to the other, and the ends were slightly curved away from the user. As Emily looked at this bow, it suddenly dawned on her what made this wood so extraordinary.
“There’s no rot,” Emily whispered, “or even age.”
“Yes, Daughter. Now you see.”
How could this wood not rot? If Mariam had crafted this bow in the forest, then it had been made more than eighteen years ago. It wasn’t covered in oil or protected in anyway. It should be brittle, fragile, and nowhere near capable of slaying a behemoth.
“My mother made this.” Emily mused. “How does an amazon make this? This doesn’t even feel like wood, judging by its weight. What is this?”
Chara was grinning from ear to ear, now, clearly pleased with Emily’s quick discovery. She reached over and ran a hand down the bow’s length, stopping to give Emily’s clenched fingers a quick rub.
“As much as we’d like to take credit for these bows,” Chara said, “we actually learned the technique from the elves.”
“Elves?” Emily didn’t hide her surprise. “I thought you were going to say centaurs. I met a wealthy farmer with an old bow who told me that centaurs make the finest bows.”
“Well,” Chara snorted, “I’m sure he was told that by whoever sold him a bent twig. Probably swindled him good, too, I’d imagine. That’s a boldfaced lie though. Only elves have truly mastered bow making, and their work can stand the test of time with unfailing strength. The elves would never share their knowledge with anyone, especially not their sworn enemies, the centaurs.”
“But you said we learned how to make these bows from the elves?”
Chara made a grimace and said, “I might have been a little overzealous when I said learned. A more accurate term would be stole, perhaps.”
“I’ll bet they’re not happy about that,” Emily smiled.
“No, they’re not, but that’s why we travel along the outskirts of Angor. Far enough from danger, but close enough to get water and the materials we need.”
From behind them, Adelpha made a coughing noise. Whether it had a purpose, Emily did not care to consider. Chara did not either.
“So, what are the bows and arrows made out of then, Mother?”
“The arrows are made from normal wood, Emily. Only the bows are made from treants.”
Emily paused, unsure if she had heard the word pronounced correctly.
“Treants?”
“Yes,” Chara confirmed. “Treants, the tree shepherds.”
“I’ve never heard of treants before. What are they?”
“You have not heard of a lot things, Daughter. It seems Mariam was determined to leave you in the dark about much. I’ll need to give her a stern talking to next time we meet. Anyway, treants are some of the easier creatures to describe. Have you seen a colossus in the city?”
“Yes!” Emily felt excited just at the memory of those magnificent statues. “But only two of the three. Actually, it might have been the same one. They were taller than most of the buildings, and the ground shook when they walked!”
“Well, a treant is about half the size of a colossus, or twice the height of minotaur. While a colossus looks like a massive statue brought to life, a treant looks like a tree made into a human. It is from their wood that we make our bows.”
“Wait, you kill them?” Emily asked, more surprised than aghast.
“No, no. That would be counterproductive. There are only so many treants in the forest, so we just catch one and cut off the branches we need. We always take them from the top, too. It’s like giving them a haircut.”
Chara playfully rubbed a hand on Emily’s head, and Emily shook it off. She found herself grinning and, miraculously, casting off the woe of leaving her brothers and parents behind. To Emily’s pleasant shock, she realized she was quickly falling in love with her grandmother.
“See,” Chara continued, “wood from a treant does not rot, because it is still alive, so to speak. It won’t continue to grow, however, once it has been cut from the treant, and the material is strong yet light, far superior to normal wood. Also, in the shape we make our bows, you can fire this small bow as if it were a larger, longer one.”
Chara held up her own bow and pointed to each end. Once again, Emily noticed the difference between it and the other bows she’d seen. While other bows were one continuous arc, an amazon bow had curved tips that bent away from the user.
“We call it a recurve bow,” Chara explained. “Because—”
“—the ends curve back again,” Emily finished.
Chara smiled, and replied, “Well, now that you know about our bows, perhaps it’s time you learned to use them.”
Emily liked the sound of that and, not surprisingly, Adelpha did not. Thankfully, her outrage was illustrated with nothing more than a grunt and a raised chin. Emily took note of Adelpha’s increasing insensitivity, but otherwise took no interest. Emily was too excited about her wonderful grandmother and the prospect of being taught to use a weapon for the first time in her life.
They stopped traveling at the crest of hill where the wind blew strongly and helped keep their skin cool from the sun’s heat. Chara made Emily face into the wind and instructed Emily to raise her bow. Emily tried to mimic the actions she’d seen her mother use to kill the behemoth. She mentally recorded this very moment as her first step towards becomin
g an amazon.
“Raise that elbow,” Chara instructed. “Don’t pull the string yet, just act like you’re preparing. Alright now, level your head. There’s no need to look like a pixie.”
“What’s a pixie?”
“Never mind that,” Chara waved her hand, “just imagine bringing the arrow up so it’s level with your eye. Okay, don’t lock your elbow. No, now you’re relaxed too much. Don’t lean forward . . . don’t lean back.”
Emily wobbled like a baby, trying to find her balance. Finally, Chara put a hand on Emily’s arm and pushed the bow down. Emily slouched and looked to the ground.
“Hey, stop,” Chara put a finger to Emily’s chin and raised it up. “You’ll get this. We’ll start simpler.”
“It’s no use,” Adelpha chuckled. “The only thing she’ll ever be good with is a scythe.”
Emily turned back to see that Adelpha had finally begun to acknowledge Emily’s presence, though only to criticize her poor performance. The amazon was sitting among the tall weeds, leaning forward to study and delight in Emily’s every awkward move. Emily’s cheeks burned a bit with embarrassment, but she turned back to Chara. She hadn’t spent her entire life dreaming big just to give up now.
Chara chose to ignore Adelpha’s comment and grabbed Emily’s arms.
“Here now, listen to me. Stand up straight and tall,” she said. “Good, now put your arms out. Hold them straight and level.”
Emily did as instructed and made a ‘T’ shape.
“Okay, now take your right elbow and bend it back towards your face. Turn your head to the left.”
Emily did so, trying to keep her posture straight.
“There,” Chara smiled. “Right there. That’s the shape you should be trying to achieve. At first, it will seem strange, and you’ll have to adjust your draw length depending on where you want to shoot. Not to mention you will rarely get the opportunity to make such a proper shot in the thick of battle. But this will be your starting point, and you will vary all your shots from this position.”
Emily tried to ingrain the feeling into her mind. If this was the basis of all future improvements, then she needed to make sure she was doing it right.
“Now let’s try it with the bow again,” Chara said.
Emily picked the bow back up and slowly slid into her starting position.
“There, much better,” Chara said.
“She still couldn’t hit a colossus if it was standing on her,” Adelpha mumbled.
* * *
They still had to make it to Lucifan before the amazons left, so Emily made the most of the short time she had. She practiced drawing the string and easing it back into place. She never released the string without an arrow nocked, something Chara called ‘dry firing,’ and Chara let her loose an arrow just once before they left. Emily’s ecstatic feeling of finally releasing an arrow had been quickly sapped when the string slapped her left wrist as it went by. Emily sucked in a breath and shook her hand, missing where the arrow had gone.
“Hit your arm with the string, I see,” Chara noted. “Don’t worry, that happens. You’ll get better with practice. In the future, though, don’t drop your bow, even if the string hits you and it hurts. You’ll mess up your shot.”
Emily rubbed the red mark on her wrist and nodded. To her surprise, Adelpha hadn’t laughed. Emily surmised that perhaps hitting oneself with the string really was common. She hoped not, though. It had really hurt.
They didn’t bother trying to collect the arrow Emily had shot. The Great Plains would never relinquish anything so small. They left for Lucifan at a brisk walk, one unburdened by having to drag a lumbering cart up each windswept hill. At some of the steeper climbs, Adelpha would appear and offer Chara assistance, but the old woman refused every offer. Sometimes she’d even give Adelpha a curt refusal, as if she were insulted by Adelpha’s assumption that age should hinder her. Emily didn’t know whether to be proud or worried, but she certainly understood where Mariam had received her willpower and stubbornness.
They had a brief scare when the trio heard a banshee’s wail far in the distance. Emily dropped into the grass before the other two, her reactions fine-tuned to such sounds from having lived on the Great Plains all her life. They waited patiently, hidden amongst the tall, yellow grass, until they heard the screeching voice fade.
“The sound must have been carried to us by the wind,” Emily whispered. “Either it’s already found a victim or it’s heading in another direction.”
“This place is so desolate, it creates its own horrors,” Adelpha sighed. “I never did like the plains.”
Emily did not come to the aid of her homeland. Indeed, she rather agreed with the amazon. The Great Plains was a place of dying dreams and lonely wanting, or at least that was Emily’s opinion. Her father and mother might disagree strongly.
Once they were sure the banshee had disappeared, they resumed their march, only this time with open ears and eyes. The wind could hide sound just as well as it could modify it.
As the sun crept low, Emily used it as a marker for their travels. The sun was sinking down, drawing the light with it and casting shadows on the other side of the world. Emily knew that meant they had to be nearing the city, but she couldn’t tell by how much. She’d only traveled to Lucifan once, and she had the suspicion that the trio’s pace was slower than that of the unicorn-drawn cart. Neither Chara nor Adelpha seemed to be in any sort of hurry, and as it turned out, they didn’t reach the city until the last dregs of light were nearly gone. The sun was past its setting point, and only a few rays of light streaked the sky above.
When they crested the basin that led down to Lucifan, Emily paused to stare at the city. It was dark now, so she couldn’t see as much as before, but still the immense size of the metropolis’ harbor was enough to make her skin tingle. She wished that Abe and Nicholas were here to see it with her. Yet even without their presence, Emily finally felt she had truly made the right choice.
“Alright, let’s keep moving,” Chara said. “We’re almost there.”
“What?” Emily asked, jumping a hair. “I thought the city was dangerous at night?”
“It is,” Adelpha smirked and paused before adding, “for farmers.”
Chara and Adelpha started to walk down the slope toward the city, and Emily followed. A wave of apprehension was brought on by the memory of the gruesome gargoyles with their skin pulled taught over their skulls, but Adelpha and Chara’s confidence pushed those doubts from her mind. They seemed to know what they were doing, and Emily drew from their confidence. Besides, she remembered, gargoyles guarded buildings, and she wasn’t going to attempt any theft tonight.
The descent down to sea level was easy enough, though perhaps too quiet for comfort. Lucifan had been a busy hub of activity during the day, with thousands of people leaving and coming, their voices, carts, and animals making the air ring with noise. Lucifan was as silent as the Great Plains now—nothing but the sound of wind and shuffling grass. Then again, Emily didn’t know what the city should sound like at night, so perhaps this was normal. Emily did notice that Adelpha and Chara had not chosen to walk the main road as the Stouts had done. Instead, they skirted through the tall grass towards the city’s edge until they reached the darker, slimmer alleyways that surrounded it.
There were no walls around Lucifan, or even a fence to mark boundaries. The inner city was a network of trade and the outer edges were filled with nothing but houses for the many that lived in Lucifan. As they entered and crept through the empty residential blocks, Emily began to wonder just what her mother and father had been afraid of.
“Mother Chara, what—”
In unison, Adelpha and Chara turned around and gave Emily a quiet shhhh!
“Keep your voice down, you idiot,” Adelpha added with piercing eyes. “What do you want?”
Emily clasped her hand over her mouth and looked away to hide her embarrassment. She hadn’t thought she’d been that loud, but her grandmother and
Adelpha’s reaction said otherwise.
“Sorry,” Emily whispered. “I was just wondering why we’re being so quiet.”
Adelpha rolled her eyes, but Chara came forward to wrap an arm around Emily’s shoulders. Her face seemed apologetic, and it made Emily feel less guilty about speaking loudly.
“To be safe, Daughter,” Chara replied. “Lucifan is rife with crime, something the angels and knights have yet to conquer. Not that we’d be worried about an ogre or two, not so long as we can use our bows, but why invite a fight when we can avoid one? Also, one can hear better when she makes no sound herself. The Kraken’s Eye is only a few blocks away, so let’s just get home in one piece. It’s not that hard, really.”
Chara gave Emily one last squeeze and then released her. She stepped past Adelpha and took the lead, and they began to creep down the streets again. Emily did her best to mimic the two amazons—stepping lightly, looking down each cross street, and keeping her bow in hand. The sandals Chara and Adelpha wore made little to no sound as they walked, and Emily envied that, because her own shoes were rather loud by comparison.
She really did need to find some amazon clothes.
“We’re almost there,” Chara whispered.
“To The Kraken’s Eye?” Emily asked.
Chara nodded, took another step, and then froze. As Chara’s body went rigid, Adelpha stopped mid step, too. Emily nearly crashed into her, but was able to wave her arms and stay upright, her clothes shuffling as she did so. When Emily was finally still, she looked up to see Chara had her head down, like she was staring at the ground. Adelpha held the same pose, and Emily desperately wanted to ask what was going on. She resisted the urge and decided instead to do as she saw. She tilted her head down and looked at the ground, but there was nothing to see, so she turned her focus to her ears and just listened.
The buildings of the city protected the streets from the wind that constantly blew. In Lucifan, the air was normally still and thus soundless. It was in that void that Emily heard something subtle. It was the sound of breathing—deep, slow, hushed breathing—and then a heavy step.