Penthesilea swung down lightly from her giant war steed, moving with consummate grace despite her solid armor and gleaming helmet. She grasped Deiphobus by the forearm with both her strong hands, greeting him with a fellow-warrior’s grip of friendship. “Thank you, Deiphobus, son of Priam, hero of a thousand single combats. I and my companions thank you, extend our condolences to you, your father, and all of Priam’s people at the news of Paris’s death—news that reached us two days ago—and we accept your generous hospitality. But I must tell you before I enter Paris’s home, Priam’s palace now, that I come not to fight the gods alongside you, but to end your war with the gods once and for all.”

Deiphobus, whose eyes tended to protrude in a hypothalic way at the best of times, literally goggled now at this beautiful Amazon. “How would you do this, Queen Penthesilea?”

“This thing I have come to tell you, and then to do,” said Penthesilea. “Come, take me in, friend Deiphobus. I need to meet with your father.”

Deiphobus explained to the Amazon queen and her bodyguard-army that his father, royal Priam, was staying here in this wing of Paris’s lesser palace because the gods had destroyed Priam’s palace on the first day of the war eight months earlier, killing his wife and the city’s queen, Hecuba.

“Again you have the Amazon women’s condolences, Deiphobos,” said Penthesilea. “Sorrow at the news of the queen’s death reached even into our distant isles and hills.”

As they entered the royal chamber, Deiphobos cleared his throat. “Speaking of your distant land, daughter of Ares, how is that you survived the gods’ wrath this month? Word has spread through the city overnight that Agamemnon found the Greek Isles empty of human life during his voyage home. Even the brave defenders of Ilium are quaking this morning at the thought of the gods eliminating all peoples save for the Argives and us. How is that you and your race was spared?”

“My race hasn’t been,” Penthesilea said flatly. “We fear that the land of the brave Amazon women is as empty as the other lands we’ve passed through the last week of our travel. But Athena has spared us for our mission. And the goddess sent an important message to the people of Ilium.”

“Pray tell us,” said Deiphobus.

Penthesilea shook her head. “The message is for royal Priam’s ears.”

As if on cue, trumpets sounded, curtains were pulled back, and Priam entered slowly, leaning on the arm of one of his royal guardsmen.

Penthesilea had seen Priam in his own royal hall less than a year before when she and fifty of her women had braved the Achaean siege to bring words of encouragement and alliance to Troy—Priam had told her that the Amazon’s help was not needed then, but had showered her with gold and other gifts. But now the Amazon queen was shocked into silence by Priam’s appearance.

The king, always venerable but filled with energy, had seemed to age twenty years in the past twelve months. His back, always so straight, was now crooked. His cheeks, always ruddy with wine or excitement at the times Penthesilea had seen him over her five-and-twenty years, even when she was a child and she and her sister, Hippolyte, had hidden behind curtains in their mother’s throne room when the royal party from Ilium visited to pay tribute, were now concave, as if the old man had lost all of his teeth. His salt-and-pepper hair and beard had gone a sad, straggly white. Priam’s eyes were rheumy now, gazing at ghosts.

The old man almost collapsed into the gold-and-lapis throne.

“Hail, Priam, son of Laomedon, noble ruler in the line of Dardanus, father of brave Hector, pitiable Paris, and welcoming Deiphobus,” said Penthesilea, going to one greaved knee. Her young-woman’s voice, although melodious, was more than strong enough to echo in the huge chamber. “I, Queen Penthesilea, perhaps the last of the Amazon queens, and my twelve breasted and bronze-armored warriors bring you praise, condolences, gifts, and our spears.”

“Your condolences and loyalties are your most precious gifts to us, dear Penthesilea.”

“I also bring you a message from Pallas Athena and the key to ending your war with the gods,” said Penthesilea.

The king cocked his head. Some of his retinue audibly gasped.

“Pallas Athena has never loved Ilium, beloved daughter. She always conspired with our Argive enemies to destroy this city and all within its walls. But the goddess is our sworn enemy now. She and Aphrodite murdered my son Hector’s baby, Astyanax, young lord of the city—saying that we and our children were like mere offerings to them. Sacrifices. There will be no peace with the gods until their race or ours is extinguished.”

Penthesilea, still on one knee but her head held high and her blue eyes flashing challenge, said, “The charge against Athena and Aphrodite is false. The war is false. The gods who love Ilium wish to love us and support us once again—including Father Zeus himself. Even gray-eyed Pallas Athena has come over to the side of Ilium because of the base treachery of the Achaeans—that liar Achilles most specifically, since he invented the calumny that Athena murdered his friend Patroclus.”

“Do the gods offer peace terms?” asked Priam. The old man’s voice was whispery, his tone almost wistful.

“Athena offers more than peace terms,” said Penthesilea, rising to her feet. “She—and the gods who love Troy—offer you victory.”

“Victory over whom?” called Deiphobus, moving to his father’s side. “The Achaeans are our allies now. They and the artificed beings, the moravecs, who shield our cities and camps from Zeus’s thunderbolts.”

Penthesilea laughed. At that moment, every man in the room marveled at how beautiful the Amazon queen was—young and fair, her cheeks flushed and her features as animated as a girl’s, her body under the beautifully molded bronze armor both lithe and lush at the same time. But Penthesilea’s eyes and eager expression were not those of a mere girl’s—they brimmed over with vitality, animal spirits, and sharp intelligence, as well as showing a warrior’s fire for action.

“Victory over Achilles who has misled your son, noble Hector, who even now leads Ilium to ruin,” cried Penthesilea. “Victory over the Argives, the Achaeans, who even now plot your downfall, the city’s ruin, your other sons’ and grandsons’ death, and the enslavement of your wives and daughters.”

Priam shook his head almost sadly. “No one can best fleet-footed Achilles in combat, Amazon. Not even Ares, who three times has been killed by Achilles’ own hands. Not even Athena, who has fled at his attack. Not even Apollo, who was carried back to Olympus in golden-bloodied pieces after challenging Achilles. Not even Zeus, who fears to come down to do single combat with the man-god.”

Penthesilea shook her head and her golden curls flashed. “Zeus fears no one, Noble Priam, pride of the Dardanus line. And he could destroy Troy—lo, destroy the entire earth on which Troy resides—with one flick of his aegis.”

Spearmen went pale and even Priam flinched at the mention of the aegis, Zeus’s most powerful and divine and mysterious weapon. It was understood by all that even the other Olympian gods could be destroyed in a minute if Zeus chose to use the aegis. This was no mere thermonuclear weapon such as the Thunder God dropped uselessly on moravec forcefields early in the war. The aegis was to be feared.

“I make this vow to you, Noble Priam,” said the Amazon queen. “Achilles will be dead before the sun sets on either world today. I vow on the blood of my sisters and mother that…”

Priam held up his hand to stop her.

“Make no vow before me now, young Penthesilea. You are like another daughter to me and have been since you were a baby. Challenging Achilles to mortal combat is death. What made you come to Troy to find your death this way?”