“Atalanta!”
“What the fuck do you want?”
“By your feet, the sword.”
Atalanta grunted, then stretched forward. Her toes had almost reached the hilt when a sandaled foot, with a dagger sheathed between the straps, stepped down on the blade.
Danae’s eyes traveled up the amber legs of a tall, muscular woman clad in a leather tunic. An assortment of weapons was tucked into her belt, including a dart pipe, whittled from what looked like bone. Her head was shaved at the sides and the remaining hair was plaited into a thick rope that fell down her back. An array of tiny animals, also carved from bone, was woven into the plait. The woman placed her hands on her hips and a smile, sharp as a whetted blade, cracked her mouth.
Behind her, more similarly dressed women emerged from the bushes, stalking between the unconscious Argonauts. All of them were heavily armed.
Danae redoubled her efforts to break her bindings, but they held fast. As she struggled, she felt a stinging sensation around her wrists as though whatever was tied around them was laced with something unpleasant.
The first woman flipped up the sword with her foot, caught the handle and pressed the blade into Danae’s chest.
“Why have you come to my island?” Her voice was deep and husky, her accent unlike any Danae had heard before.
“We were wrecked.” Danae’s tongue was still clumsy from the effects of the dart. “The storm...smashed our ship.”
The woman pushed the sword to biting point through the fabric of Danae’s dress. “You’ve come to pillage us.”
“If that were true, you’d be dead,” said Atalanta.
Danae could feel the warrior trying to break her bonds. She wasn’t getting anywhere either.
“Come on,” growled a blonde woman with lightly tanned skin and high cheekbones. She was standing over Heracles’s unconscious frame wielding an axe. “Let’s finish them.”
Danae had to think, buy them some time. She looked around for something, anything to distract their captors. Her eyes fell on the darts peppering Heracles’s skin.
“You kept us alive,” she blurted. “We’ve been here for hours. If you wanted to kill us, why wait?”
The sword remained at Danae’s chest, but the woman hesitated. She glanced at Heracles. “Your leader killed two of my hunters before he succumbed to the phármakon.”
“He’s not our lead—he was defending himself.”
“Only cowards drug their enemies,” growled Atalanta.
“Hypsipyle,” said the blonde woman impatiently. “Why do we wait? He killed our sisters.”
Hypsipyle’s face was almost impenetrable. But Danae could tell there was something holding her back from giving the order.
“You want something from us.” She hoped with all her soul she was right.
With a grunt, the blonde woman swung her axe over her head. Both Danae and Atalanta cried out as the double blade sang through the air.
“Peta.”
The axe came to a halt just above Heracles’s neck. Hypsipyle removed the sword from Danae’s chest and turned toward her hunter, eyes burning with fury.
“I did not give the order.”
The two women stared at each other, like two rival predators circling the same fallen prey. With a snarl, Peta swung her axe away from Heracles’s body and stalked off across the beach.
“No one harms them until I give the word,” shouted Hypsipyle.
The hunters glanced at each other then took a reluctant step back from the unconscious Argonauts, their weapons still raised.
Hypsipyle rounded on Danae. “What are you to them?”
